Greening Africa’s Future

Addis Ababa, 18 April 2012 – The 4th Africa Carbon Forum (ACF), this year in Addis Ababa, opened its doors today to over 1,000 registered participants from across the globe to foster a discussion on climate change and carbon finance in Africa.

The message resonating this year from Addis is that Africa represents a golden opportunity for a green future.

“The vast potential represented by African countries in the fight against climate change cannot be underestimated,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).“The Africa Carbon Forum is where potential projects and developers and funders can meet, exchange ideas, and – it is hoped – take the concrete steps toward greening Africa’s future.”

This three-day forum has been described by participants of previous ACFs as “the one ‘unmissable’ event for doing carbon business in Africa.” ACF’s aim is to share knowledge on carbon markets and green technologies in Africa. The conference includes presentations by experts in the field as well as workshops that will allow for a dialogue among policymakers, project developers, and investors on topics such as the future of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in Africa, climate-smart agriculture, public–private partnerships, and project funding on the continent.

Africa has enormous potential for sustainable, climate-friendly development, with an abundance of renewable energy resources to satisfy future energy needs. Despite this, Africa continues to face enormous obstacles to investment and lags behind other parts of the world in taking advantage of carbon finance to develop climate friendly projects and to encourage the transfer of cutting edge technologies and know-how.

It is a continent that has the potential to make a significant impact on mitigating climate change through its extensive forest resources. To achieve this, further investment needs to be facilitated for low carbon projects. CDM is in the process of standardization to simplify rules for low income countries. These topics, among others, will be discussed at the Africa Carbon Forum.

The Africa Carbon Forum is held under the Nairobi Framework, an initiative launched to help developing countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, to increase their participation in the CDM.

The organizing partners of this year’s Africa Carbon Forum include the African Development Bank, the African Climate Policy Centre, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its UNEP Risø Centre, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and the World Bank and its World Bank Institute. The Forum will also be supported by the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Agency.

About the CDMThe CDM allows emission reduction projects in developing countries to earn certified emission reductions (CERs), each equivalent to one tonne of CO2. CERs can be traded, and used by industrialized countries to meet a part of their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The CDM assists countries in achieving sustainable development and emission reductions, while giving industrialized countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission targets.